


my bones are shifting in my skin

by moonlitserenades



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Cheese, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Sharing Clothes, dramatic monologuing, post ws
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 20:12:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3582411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlitserenades/pseuds/moonlitserenades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky does this thing now, sometimes, where he’ll go hours without talking. Days, even. It terrified Steve at first; he couldn’t stop himself from thinking that it meant all of Bucky’s tenuous, hard-won progress had flown out the window. On the days that follow, Bucky is often withdrawn and irritable, snapping at everything and refusing to do basic, necessary things like eat and ensure that he’s hydrated. Sam says it’s his mind’s way of coping with the excessive trauma he's suffered. Steve supposes that’s better than the alternative, but it doesn’t make those days easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my bones are shifting in my skin

Bucky does this thing now, sometimes, where he’ll go hours without talking. Days, even. It terrified Steve at first; he couldn’t stop himself from thinking that it meant all of Bucky’s tenuous, hard-won progress had flown out the window. On the days that follow, Bucky is often withdrawn and irritable, snapping at everything and refusing to do basic, necessary things like eat and ensure that he’s hydrated. Sam says it’s his mind’s way of coping with the excessive trauma he's suffered. Steve supposes that’s better than the alternative, but it doesn’t make those days easy. 

He’s learned, now, that on those days the best thing he can do is leave Bucky to his own devices. Let Bucky come to him, instead of trying to force him into something he’s not ready for. (It took several tries before he figured it out. Several screaming fights, several holes in Tony’s drywall, a couple of broken bones. Natasha was the one who finally took him aside, more gently than usual, and said, “What you’re doing, Rogers...it’s not helping. He’s gotta work this all out on his own. He’ll be back eventually, but you can’t push it.”) It’s hard. It’s probably one of the hardest things Steve has ever dealt with, which, given his history, is saying something.

Especially now. Bucky’s been withdrawn and sullen for almost a week, trailing silently around the tower like a ghost and disappearing any time anyone so much as looks at him twice. This time, at least, Steve thinks he knows the reason; Bucky’s birthday is getting closer and he’d made the mistake of asking if he wanted to do anything special for it. 

Bucky had blinked slowly, his face utterly, terrifyingly blank. “What’s there to celebrate?”

Steve had gone cold, aware of a grievous misstep, and stumbled to correct himself. “C’mon, Buck,” he’d said, too cheerful--bright plastic fake--“You’ve always loved a good party. What better reason to celebrate than you?”

Bucky’s face hadn’t changed at all. “Not me,” he corrected, mechanical. “Bucky Barnes.”

They’d had the conversation before, such as it was (“I haven’t been that guy since before the war”) andbutevenso Steve can’t seem stop making the same. stupid. mistakes.

“You can...can reclaim it,” he’d tried, too thin and weak to be remotely believable. “That would be good, wouldn’t it? Take it back.”

It could’ve actually worked. That was what killed him the most about it. If he had done things just a little differently, it might have actually been convincing. But he hadn’t. And it wasn’t.

“I don’t want it,” Bucky had said. Still no emotion in it, just a flat denial. And, with no further explanation, he’d turned and walked away. The only sound he made was to shut the door with a little more force than normal.

And now it’s nearly a week later, and it’s the day that, no matter what Bucky says, Steve can’t not think of as his. “We can’t just leave him in there all day,” he says, tracing mindless patterns on Tony’s countertop. “I mean, it’s his _birthday._ ”

“Not anymore,” Sam says, for at least the dozenth time. He slides an omelette onto Steve’s plate to soften the blow, and goes back to cracking eggs. “Steve, man, look. I get it. I do. But he’s not interested, and this is the kinda shit people’ve gotta come to terms with on their own time.”

“I know,” Steve says, because he does, even though the thought of it makes his chest hurt. “But he’s all alone up there and I just...he’s spent so much time alone already.”

“If he wanted to be around people, he would,” Sam replies, and to his credit, the words are as gentle and patient as they were the first time he’d said them. “I know you don’t always believe me, but Barnes is making a lot of progress, _especially_ considering how long they had him under for. You gotta let him slip up once in a while.”

Steve pokes at his eggs and says nothing.

“And,” Sam adds, which is new. Steve raises his eyes slightly, his chin still pillowed in his hand. There’s something in Sam’s eyes that says he’s not going to like what comes next, but Steve doesn’t have the energy to brace himself for the impact. “Total honesty? I think part of the problem is that he thinks you’d be happier if he went back to being the way he was before all this.”

Steve has been suspecting it for a while. Doesn’t take the sting out, though. “That’s not it at all,” he blurts, sitting up so suddenly that his chair nearly tips backward. “God, no. I’m just...I’m so glad to have him back at all, and I just want him to...to be happy. No matter what that means now. No matter what that changes.”

“I know,” Sam says sympathetically. “I get it. I just don’t think he does.”

Steve’s appetite is suddenly gone. He’s pushed back from the counter before he even registers doing so, halfway out of the kitchen before it occurs to him to stop and ask, “Do you think going to talk to him about it would make things better, or worse?”

“It’s a toss-up,” Sam says, with the air of one wishing he could say something else. “But I’d say it’s definitely something you should talk about with him at some point. Probably sooner rather than later.”

Steve’s most of the way up the stairs by the time Sam finishes speaking. Bucky’s door is firmly closed, and he waits with baited breath outside for a few seconds straining to hear signs of life that don’t come. He’s sure Bucky is awake though; neither one of them needs more than a few hours of sleep a night--which is fortunate, given that the nightmares don’t allow it to them anyway. He knocks a few times, tentative. “Buck? It’s me.”

Nothing.

He swallows hard. The rejection isn’t a surprise, but it makes his throat tight anyway. “Can I talk to you for a second? It--um, it won’t take long.”

Nothing.

Steve lets his head thud quietly against the door. He breathes out, quietly. The idea of not saying something, now that he has some idea of what needs to be said, is physically painful. So he breathes out, steels himself, and starts to talk.

“Listen, Buck, I just wanted to say that...that I’m sorry I pushed you so hard about this birthday thing. I didn’t mean for it to--to make you feel bad, or like I was trying to make you back into who you were when we were kids. Christ, I’m not who I was either. How could we be?” He laughs. It’s bitter in his mouth. “I think I thought it might make things better, but the truth is, I was thinking more about myself than I was about you. And that’s not fair. 

“Truth is, it doesn’t matter to me whether we celebrate your birthday or not anymore. I’d just like to be with you. We don’t even have to talk. You don’t even have to look at me. I don’t care, just...you don’t have to do this alone, y’know? I know it’s hard, and that’s--that’s okay. I don’t expect things to be perfect...some days I don’t even expect them to be good. But it doesn’t matter because...because I’m with you to the end of the line, pal.”

He stays there, eyes closed, breathing shakily for several agonizing seconds. Just as he’s about to give up and walk away, the door swings open and Steve finds himself careening forward and colliding with a muscular, very _familiar_ chest. 

Bucky catches him with the ease of one who’d known exactly what to expect, and when he pulls back he keeps his hands on Steve’s shoulders to steady him. There are deep black circles under his eyes and he looks pale and underfed, but his hair is damp from a shower and he’s wrapped in one of Steve’s oldest and most well-worn sweaters. It’s just a little too big on him, and the red draws attention to the pallor of his face, but it’s a welcome sight.

“Jesus, Steve,” he says, voice rasping just a little. “Carter’s right...you’re always so dramatic.”


End file.
